In a large percentage of human activities, manually engagable implements and devices are commonly and regularly used. The great majority of those implements and devices include and are characterized by hand engagable grips or handles about which the user's hands are securely engaged to establish physical control of their the related implements and devices, when put to their intended use.
The prior art handles for the majority of implements and devices are parts related to or are portions of those implements and devices which are basically straight elongate parts or portions of sufficient length to extend laterally and/or diagonally across the palms of the hands of the users and which are of sufficient cross sectional size and shape that, when placed in contact with and across the palms of the user's hands, the users can conveniently establish tight and secure gripping engagement about them by turning or bending their fingers and thumbs about the handles and urging the handles into secure engagement within the palms of their hands and between their fingers and thumbs.
Throughout the years, it has been common practice to form and/or shape handles in various special ways to enhance the security of the grip a user can attain therwith and/or to make the handles as comfortable to grip as is practical and/or possible. Further, it is also common practice to provide such handles with soft yielding covers or jackets of leather, rubber and the like, to absorb shock forces and/or to allow for limited confirmation of the outer surface portions of the handles with the user's hands. Still further, it is common practice to provide such handles with perforated coverings, jackets, and the like, which serve to afford some circulation of air and other fluids between the handles and the user's hands and to thereby enhance the comfort and serviceability of the handles.
No two persons hands are alike with respect to size, shape, strength, flexibility, endurance, toughness and the like. Further, the grip engaging hands of substantially all individuals undergo major physical changes at rapid rates, as their hands are used and as environmental conditions change. One notable fast occuring change that takes place in the grip engaging hand of a person is the thickness or "bulk" of the hand. As a general rule, one's gripping hand commences to fill with body fluids and to swell or "pump up" as soon as continuous work is commenced and, oftentimes, swells to a greater extent and becomes stiff as work continues and fatigue sets in. As a result of the foregoing, when the design and construction of handles is given due consideration, the size, shape and construction of handles provided by the prior art is, as a general rule, a mere compromise as regards the size, shape and construction thereof and is intended to be as serviceable as possible for as many potential individual users thereof as is possible.
With the foregoing well known in the art, prior efforts have been made to construct handles which are sufficiently soft, plastic and/or resilient to conform to the size and shape of a user's hand, when initially gripped and as the user's grip thereabout is sustained. Unfortunately, such efforts have failed to bring about satisfactory results since the imposition of such soft, plastic and/or resilient handle structures between the hands of the users and the implements or devices of which the handles are a part interfere with and so reduce the feel and necessary secure control of implements or devices that they constitute an impairment to the effective use of the implements and devices.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the most satisfactory soft and resilient type of handle structure thus far provided by the prior art are those synthetic rubber grips which are engaged about the handles of some makes of hammers and on the handlebars of bicycles and the like. Such soft and resilient rubber or rubber-like grips often afford notable shock absorbing and protective characteristics but, as a general rule, must be made and are sufficiently hard and stiff so that they cannot and do not conform to a user's hand in a manner to establish a comfortable and effective fit therebetween. Further, they are generally sufficiently stiff and hard so that the user's grip thereon is maintained substantially static.
It has been long recognized and well understood by many who are skilled in the art of hand tools and the like, that the inherent inadequacies found in handles or hand grips provided by the prior art are a principal cause of premature fatigue of the hands and arms of persons using implements and devices with which ordinary manually engagable handles are related and that such fatigue results in a notable and costly reduction of work output and the production of inaccurate or inferior work.